Best wireless router to use with gigabit internet

[jdrewrd]

Hi all,
First post on tom's hardware.

I have a Linksys E2000 router. It's always been fine, however, I just recently upgraded to gigabit internet. Seems that with the E2000, my internet connection is bottle necked and I max out around 170-190Mb/s. If I bypass the router, I'm at 900Mb+. Is this a router setting that I am missing since this is supposed to be a gigabit router or does the gigabit rating only apply to LAN connections? Also, if I'm out of luck with this router, what router would be good to take advantage of this internet connection?

Thanks!

 

[cklaubur]

From what I have been able to find on the specs of the E2000, the LAN ports for sure are gigabit. My concern would be the WAN port. If it is not gigabit, there's your bottleneck.

Casey

 

[bill001g]

Likely it is a limitation related to NAT. The router must replace the headers on every single packet going in each direction and recalculate all the checksums. Very hard to say few routers will actually tell you how fast they will run. It is directly related to packet size since it takes just as much overhead to do a packet with 40 bytes of data as one with 1400. The only ones I have seen that state rates are firewalls. They generally tell encrypted data rates. You would think if can do nat as fast as ipsec.

The huge overhead in NAT is the key reason a layer3 switch cannot do nat. Since a layer3 will not delay packets...ie a gig port will do 1g in and out and all port simultaneously including routing they remove any feature that will slow it down.

 

[jdrewrd]

From what I have just read, it does seen the NAT in incapable of keeping up with the traffic the computer and the WAN are able to dish out. I haven't confirmed this for sure, but it seems likely. What settings could I monkey with? Can I increase packet size to take some burden off the NAT? If there is no software solution my question becomes, are there any routers out there at the consumer level that do support gigabit internet? It seems a shame to have this speed and be unable to take advantage of it.

 

[jdrewrd]

I think I have answered my own question here. Seems very few routers optimize router throughput in their designs since so few people actually need gigabit throughput. As bill said above, the port speed isn't what is important - its how fast the NAT can pass the packets through. This website actually does nothing but test Networking hardware and publish results. Very helpful -

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/rankers/router/ranking/N600?rank=20

 

[Pak Sou-Won]

I don't know if this is any help to you but the B4RN http://network (gigabit FTTH) uses two different models of router from Genexis http://. The Titanium and the DRG 700 series. They both support fibre termination units or CAT 5 for the WAN depending on how your provider terminated in your property. I have witnessed symmetrical speeds of just over 932Mb/s using both these models, of course hardware on either end of the connection is usually our limiting factor.